LITMIR.BIZ

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my niece Honey (six going on sixteen) presented her cheek for me to peck as she swept past in her pink satin dress and tiara.

      I closed the door and followed Mike and Candy through into the kitchen—still the well-constructed but rather orange pine units my dad had installed in the eighties—and found them unpacking enough food for a small army. Candy had made a huge lasagne and a sliced-tomato salad, and she was giving brisk instructions to Mike to turn the oven on to warm the nibbles and ciabatta. All I’d had to do was provide some wine and tiramisu, the one dessert I was capable of making without disaster.

      I knew Candy’s famous lasagne was full of pancetta, cream and three kinds of Italian cheese, and I promised myself I’d only have half a portion. Which I did. It was the second helping and the generous plate of tiramisu that really blew all my good intentions out of the water.

      After lunch, Mike suggested taking the kids over the village green to blow off some steam. He picked up a football and the boys cheered but Honey folded her arms and looked down at her glistening party dress, which she had insisted on putting on in honour of a visit to her favourite (and only) auntie. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie,’ Candy said, smoothing down her daughter’s dark hair. ‘You can stay behind with me and Pippa if you like.’

      Honey liked, so when the whirlwind of male energy had gathered up its coats and gloves, wellies and footballs and slammed the door behind itself, Honey skipped off to see if I’d missed any of the chocolate decorations on the Christmas tree (fat chance!), while Candy got us both a nice glass of red.

      We walked into the living room, where Honey had already dived under the tree to begin her search. Once again, just the sight of the blowsy floral wallpaper, the tree in the corner, all Mum’s Christmas decorations hanging just where she would have put them, hit me in the chest.

      ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ Candy said quietly beside me. ‘Them not being here. I mean, I know it’s been five years, but this is actually the first Christmas we’ve had here since …’

      ‘Since Dad died,’ I finished for her. We both stood there for a few seconds and then Candy wandered over to the fireplace, which had always been my favourite bit of the room. It was a Victorian cast-iron one and I’d actually made the effort to sweep out the grate and light a proper fire there this morning, exactly as my mum would have done.

      I plopped down at one end of the large, squashy sofa and picked up one of her tapestried cushions, hugging it to my middle. I was becoming an expert in using soft furnishings to disguise the bulges that appeared every time I sat down.

      ‘At least Christmas in the village is lovely,’ Candy continued. ‘What with all the lights and the carol singing and the primary school nativity. I didn’t realise how lucky I was to have grown up with it until I’d moved away. And it must have been a great way to bump into old friends! Who have you run into since you’ve been back?’

      ‘Erm,’ I muttered. ‘I think a lot of people have moved away.’

      An outright lie. Or, at the very least, a guess. The truth was that I had no idea who still lived here and who didn’t, because apart from going to work, I’d pretty much kept myself to myself.

      If I’d been able to afford it, I’d have gone somewhere completely new. Maybe even a different country. But I hadn’t had much choice. Once our divorce was final, Ed and I had decided to put the flat we’d owned in North London on the market. Ed had already moved out—gone to live with the Tart—and I hadn’t wanted to stay behind alone in the home we’d once shared, surrounded by a lot of empty space and stale memories, so I’d come back to the village of Elmhurst, slap-bang in the commuter belt of north-west Kent, the place where I’d grown up and gone to school, where I’d learned to drive and had fallen in love for the first time.

      Candy walked across the room and perused the sad little row of five Christmas cards standing guard on the mantle. When she got to the largest and most glitzy one, she paused, frowned, then picked it up and turned round to look at me.

      ‘Ed sent you a Christmas card? I can’t believe it!’ She stared down at it, read it again, her expression darkening.

      ‘Don’t be like that,’ I said, hugging my cushion gently. ‘He was just trying to be nice.’

      Candy humphed loudly.

      ‘Just because he fell in love with … her … doesn’t mean he stopped caring about me,’ I said. ‘I know he feels terrible about how things worked out.’

      This time Candy didn’t just humph, she snorted. ‘Tell me you’re not still in love with him.’

      I looked away. ‘I’m not. I mean, not in the same way.’

      She just stared at me. ‘After everything he did to you on that stupid TV show! You need to move on, Pip.’

      ‘I know,’ I said, nodding, and then I said it again, more firmly this time. ‘I’m trying. But think about how you’d feel if this happened to you and Mike … Even if you were hurt … devastated, even … you couldn’t just flick a switch and feel nothing. It takes time.’ I felt the tears begin to sting in my nostrils. ‘You need to give me more time.’

      Candy put the card back on the mantelpiece and folded her arms. I could tell she wanted to go all Big Sister on me and throw it in the fire, but she resisted. I loved her just a little bit more than I already did when she changed the subject.

      ‘Did the last tenants leave it in an okay state?’ she asked as she plopped on to the other end of the sofa. ‘I know you had to move in quite quickly.’

      I nodded. ‘They were a lovely family. It’s probably dirtier now than it was when they left.’

      Candy, not wishing to incriminate herself, didn’t comment.

      ‘Thanks again,’ I said, ‘for agreeing to let me move in here. I won’t stay here forever. Just until I work out what I’m doing next.’

      ‘You needed somewhere to go once you sold the flat, and we had an empty house. It’s what families do for each other.’ She frowned. ‘And I’m really sorry.’

      ‘What on earth for? You’ve been more than generous. You won’t even accept the full rent from me.’

      She sighed as she stared at the Christmas tree, which wobbled slightly as her daughter manoeuvred under its bottom branches. ‘For leaving you here all alone this Christmas. I didn’t realise how hard it must have been for you until just now.’

      ‘It was okay,’ I said, although it really hadn’t been, but none of it had been Candy’s fault.

      ‘You know what Mike’s mum and dad are like,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘A total nightmare. I don’t know how they stayed married for twenty years before going their separate ways. We have to have a strict rota for his parents and their respective partners for Christmases, and we’ve learned the hard way that veering from it only causes upset.’

      ‘It’s okay,’ I said again. ‘I was fine on my own.’

      Candy sighed. ‘To be totally honest, I’d have much rather spent it with you. We trundled off down to Mike’s dad’s farmhouse, where his step-mum cooked a vegetarian nut thing that the kids refused to eat and, frankly, I didn’t blame them. It tasted like manure.’

      I chuckled into my big wine glass.

      ‘I feel as if I should make it up to you.’

      Ah, that was what the overcatering and the three bottles of prosecco had been about. Candy was feeling guilty.

      I called for Honey, who was still convinced there was a reward for an intrepid and tenacious treasure hunter, and her pink satin bottom reversed from under the drooping branches of the Christmas tree. I smiled at her. ‘Pass me that little red present bag, will you, darling?’

      Honey did as she was asked, then clambered on to the sofa and sat down, half on me and half on the cushion next door, and looked longingly inside the bag. ‘Is that for

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